Our first order should be ready for pick up June 2nd:
5 female Barred Rock
4 female Rhode Island Red
1 rooster Rhode Island Red
Our second shipment won't be ready until June 30th:
4 Jersey Giant females
2 Jersey Giant Roosters
2 of something else (Todd says whatever as long as it is a brown egg layer). He mentioned Black Stars, but I'm thinking these or these. I would really, really like to have some of these, but I was outvoted by Todd and Tyler - Jessie said they were wierd, but she would go along with me.
Okay all you chicken keepers out there - is there anything else we need to know? (And don't even tell me we need more chicks in each batch - the only reason we are doing 2 batches is the Jersey Giants won't be ready until the 30th of June, and Tyler is a little anxious to get these and get started).
The plan with all the roosters is - if they all cannot get along, some will go in the freezer when they are ready (the Jersey Giants mature at 13 lbs.). And we are getting so many banking on the fact that a few could not make it throughout this whole process. Although as I said, the way our luck runs, every single chick will survive and thrive.
My parents have chickens, white ones and golden comets (?). They have a really, really tame chicken. Tyler said to me yesterday - "I want one of Grandma's tame white chickens, and when I go to visit, I will take the chicken in a cage so the chicken can visit with Grandma and Grandpa and all her chicken friends." How cute is that??? That definitely makes up for wanting a Rooster to flog his sister when she is mean to him (which he mentioned again - so I'm thinking he is serious on this - might have to have a little talk with him).
So then last night it was look around and try to figure out where in the heck we are going to keep these things, and all the other boring but necessary stuff. Turns out we have a buckeye barn - we were going to use it for the dogs in the winter and make runs attached to it with a concrete pad - guess the chickens will live in it for now - and we'll fence them in a little area. Todd does not believe we can do the whole free range chicken thing, but I have other plans on that (we'll just do it when he is not around). But, we do have lots of coyotes around us, so I can see the point when we are not home to keeping them penned in.
On other news - it's been crappy and rainy here - is warm weather ever going to arrive? We've spent our evenings hunting wild mushrooms (so far, we've only found about a dozen).
Enjoy the rain!!
Kris
6 comments:
Are you taking votes??
If you are, then I vote for the Wyandottes, my girlfirend had some (those and the Reds, with some nasty mean thngs I can't remember) when we were little and they did make a good pet, one I got to name, she was Caroline, and she was the sweetest thing, I held her continuosly. Either she was sweet or now that I"m older, she might have been brain damaged?
Tyler is going to have so much fun with these babies, don't forget to make a separation in the fence so he can "pet" his favorites and the mean ones wont get him.
How fun! I think you are being very wise putting them up in the barn and fencing in the area. If you don't, they will take over your entire yard. Make no mistake about that!
Electrified netting might help keep chickens in and critters out (aka coyotes). We just moved 300 of our layers out to pasture. They graduated from our brooder house. We fence the perimeter with electrified netting. I'll let you know how that goes.
You are going to love your chickens!
Lyns
Mal won't let me have chickens even though we've got the room for them. I'll have to live out my chicken keeping fantasy through you and yours. LOL
love and hugs xxx
YAY!!! So excited for you!! As for having too many roos, I really liked it when we had a selection to choose from. That way you have options if you end up with one or two meanies in the bunch. I've made the mistake of only ording one or two roos before and they end up EVIL. With our last batch, we were able to choose the nicest guy to keep.
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i am so jealous about your chickens! i can't wait to see them! we had them when I was little, and I would go collect the eggs. I once found a snake wrapped around a bunch of them. They would always peck at my toes! i still want chickens! maybe someday.
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